Retro Gaming Australia

Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance was part of the first wave of “good” games for the PlayStation 2 in late 2001, following a kind of lacking launch lineup. It’s relatively light as far as RPGs go, but it really shines in co-op.

Earthworm Jim: Special Edition is an expanded version of the first game in the series which features an extra level, Big Bruty, 1,000 extra frames of animation, alternate endings and a remixed CD soundtrack. It was originally released for the Mega CD, with a Windows 95-based PC version released some months later.

MDK is Shiny Entertainment’s third game, a distinct departure from the bright, cartoon-like Earthworm Jim. The game was originally pitched as Murder, Death, Kill, but the title was rejected by US publisher Playmates Interactive, whose parent company was to make toys associated with the game. MDK’s acronym tends to change based on the day – Max, Doctor Hawkins and Kurt, Mission: Deliver Kindess and My Dear Knight are just a few examples cited in official documents and interviews.

Atomic Bomberman is a bit of an anomaly. It’s Bomberman designed by a Western team – Interplay licensed the rights from Hudson Soft and proceeded to produce their own spin on the formula. Obviously the best part of the game is the multiplayer support – Atomic Bomberman supports up to 10 players. LAN and Internet play were planned for the project, and remnants are in the game code, but neither was present in the final release.

ClayFighter 2: Judgment Clay is the sequel to the surprisingly successful (but not all that good) claymation fighter, ClayFighter. Only three characters from the original were retained, and the Mega Drive release was cancelled.

Since they finally decided to show off something for the sequel, we thought we’d take the opportunity to bring up the ad for the original. Wasteland is a post-apocalyptic RPG from the late 1980s, developed by Interplay and published by Electronic Arts. Interplay would later use the setting and style of Wasteland as the basis for Fallout.

I thought I had seen all of the advertisements for Earthworm Jim, but it seems one had eluded me. It’s kind of cruel that I laughed at it though.

Blackthorne is a pre-Warcraft Blizzard effort that puts you in the shoes of mercenary Kyle Vlaros, who must return to his home planet of Tuul and take on the forces which overthrew his people. This ad is for the original DOS release.

ClayFighter is a middle-of-the-road fighting game whose visual presentation was far more remarkable than its gameplay on release.

Before they became the even-year Call of Duty developer, even before they became an Activision port house, Treyarch developed original IP. Their first was Die by the Sword, a medieval hack and slash game which combined both 3D action/adventure and arena battle gameplay. Players could cut their opponents limbs off and use them against them. The game used a revolutionary-but-clumsy control system called VSIM, which gave players full control over their sword swings.